Saul Landau: The FBI in peace and war--still the same
[Saul Landau writes a regular column for CounterPunch and progresoweekly.com. His new Counterpunch Press book is A BUSH AND BOTOX WORLD.]
When I read a news story about the FBI "taking cues from the CIA to recruit thousands of covert informants in the United States as part of a sprawling effort to boost its intelligence capabilities," (ABCNews.com July 25) I had a déjà vu experience.
As a kid, I listened to the radio show "The FBI in Peace and War," in which the Bureau always got its man and whose Agents operated under strict codes of decency. In the 1960s, "The FBI" morphed to television. Toward the end of each episode, Inspector Erskine, the heroic FBI Agent, played by Efrem Zimbalist Jr., would show photos of "the most wanted criminals" and ask the TV public to become informers to help capture them like America's Most Wanted today. Coincidentally, the TV FBI agents and the bad guys drove new Fords. Coincidentally, Ford sponsored the show. J. Edgar Hoover, who directed the FBI for 48 years until he died in 1972, approved the script for every episode.
My father corroborated the real messages of both programs: "Don't screw around with the FBI. They're powerful and hate Bolsheviks." (He referred to his own childhood in Kiev when the Tsarist secret police went after the Reds. His experiences in "the old country" led him to try to scare me away from activities that might bring me into conflict with any form of police.)
He was generally correct in his assessment. As a kid growing up in the Bronx, I recall the patrol car screeching to a halt during stickball games. The cops would jump from the car, grab our stick and break it in half. This proved more of a deterrent to continuing our game than the droppings of the fruit and vegetable man's horse, which inevitably fell on third base (a manhole cover).
In eighth grade I went into Manhattan to sell pennants and flags during a Thanksgiving Day parade. An oversized cop threw me into the paddy wagon along with two other hopeful vendors and my board full of supplies -- until the parade ended. I had neglected I subsequently discovered to pay the proper toll to the police that vendors had to cough up before the cops granted you their "license" to sell at the parade.
In 1952, we Stuyvesant high school students marched in sympathy with striking teachers. As we arrived at City Hall the Cossacks charged. The cops on horses swung clubs at students. One cop grabbed the school newspaper's photographer camera and tossed the Leica under his horse, which trod on it.
In 1954, I wrote a letter to the editor of the Daily Cardinal, the University of Wisconsin Student Newspaper. I argued the campus left youth group deserved the right to bring Communist speakers to campus. It got published and the Bureau opened a file on me. From then on, the FBI collected my public and private correspondence, tapped my phone and had informants writing reports about my activity. A typical phone intercept reported that "subject spoke with father" and detailed my plans to travel with my family from San Francisco to Santa Monica. Then, "subject appeared at father's house and was seen talking with father through window. Topic of conversation unknown."...
Read entire article at Counterpunch
When I read a news story about the FBI "taking cues from the CIA to recruit thousands of covert informants in the United States as part of a sprawling effort to boost its intelligence capabilities," (ABCNews.com July 25) I had a déjà vu experience.
As a kid, I listened to the radio show "The FBI in Peace and War," in which the Bureau always got its man and whose Agents operated under strict codes of decency. In the 1960s, "The FBI" morphed to television. Toward the end of each episode, Inspector Erskine, the heroic FBI Agent, played by Efrem Zimbalist Jr., would show photos of "the most wanted criminals" and ask the TV public to become informers to help capture them like America's Most Wanted today. Coincidentally, the TV FBI agents and the bad guys drove new Fords. Coincidentally, Ford sponsored the show. J. Edgar Hoover, who directed the FBI for 48 years until he died in 1972, approved the script for every episode.
My father corroborated the real messages of both programs: "Don't screw around with the FBI. They're powerful and hate Bolsheviks." (He referred to his own childhood in Kiev when the Tsarist secret police went after the Reds. His experiences in "the old country" led him to try to scare me away from activities that might bring me into conflict with any form of police.)
He was generally correct in his assessment. As a kid growing up in the Bronx, I recall the patrol car screeching to a halt during stickball games. The cops would jump from the car, grab our stick and break it in half. This proved more of a deterrent to continuing our game than the droppings of the fruit and vegetable man's horse, which inevitably fell on third base (a manhole cover).
In eighth grade I went into Manhattan to sell pennants and flags during a Thanksgiving Day parade. An oversized cop threw me into the paddy wagon along with two other hopeful vendors and my board full of supplies -- until the parade ended. I had neglected I subsequently discovered to pay the proper toll to the police that vendors had to cough up before the cops granted you their "license" to sell at the parade.
In 1952, we Stuyvesant high school students marched in sympathy with striking teachers. As we arrived at City Hall the Cossacks charged. The cops on horses swung clubs at students. One cop grabbed the school newspaper's photographer camera and tossed the Leica under his horse, which trod on it.
In 1954, I wrote a letter to the editor of the Daily Cardinal, the University of Wisconsin Student Newspaper. I argued the campus left youth group deserved the right to bring Communist speakers to campus. It got published and the Bureau opened a file on me. From then on, the FBI collected my public and private correspondence, tapped my phone and had informants writing reports about my activity. A typical phone intercept reported that "subject spoke with father" and detailed my plans to travel with my family from San Francisco to Santa Monica. Then, "subject appeared at father's house and was seen talking with father through window. Topic of conversation unknown."...